>>34916649He's still not the rival. I doesn't matter if he wasn't a *true* member, you fight them as such. Same for N - brainwashed at the end by daddy, sure, but you spend the game with him being a Team Plasma fight.
The rivals are:
Kanto: Blue/Green Oak
Johto: Silver
Hoenn: in gen III, just the unused avatar. in oras is them plus Wally who got updated, he wasn't a rival in gen III
Sinnoh: Barry
Unova1: Bianca and Cheren
Unova2: Hugh
Kalos: the unused avatar
Alola: Hau
Rivals in Pokémon are a very specific trainer class, and it's the person that starts the journey with you and takes one of the starters (witch the exception of Wally in ORAS, which was obviously G trying to fix the disaster that was the other avatar dropping mid journey). Nice or asshole has nothing to do with it, because in Japan your rival is someone you respect and you friendly compete for the top. Watch more shonen.
